What is a Cloud Hard Drive ?

Hard drives can be broadly categorized into two: Internal and External Hard Drive. Internal Hard Drive comes built in within a system. Higher the Hard Drive capacity, higher is the memory storage capability. External Hard Drive offers numerous advantages over Internal Hard Drive. Higher mobility, portability and independence from the device are some of the benefits. With the advent of technology, concept of cloud storage came into being.

Cloud Hard Drive is a holistic term used to describe web-services that offers storage facility on a remote Server. It can cater to individuals, small businesses or large corporations. Cloud Hard Drive is accessible over the internet with client side software. These services are viable for backup of 1terabyte (TB) or less. Service providers are liable for maintaining the server to facilitate smooth delivery.

Service providers, generally, provides a limited amount of storage space for free. Free storage space varies from company to company. After consumption of free storage space, customers are charged for extra memory. The name cloud has been derived from the symbol of internet on flowcharts. Cloud Hard Drive eliminates dependency on hardware storage devices. Hence, the additional physical space can be used for other productive purposes.

Advantages of Cloud Hard Drive:

Accessibility: Advancement in technology gave birth to a host of electronic devices and gadgets. People access various gadgets for work and recreational purposes. With cloud, there is no need to toggle between devices. One can access the desired files anywhere, provided there is an internet connection.

Cost Effective: External hard drive does not come at a cheap price. Besides, additional resource and time has to be spent for backing up the data. Cloud Hard Drive gets rid of all the backup hassle. Moreover, limited amount of storage data is available free of cost.

Security: Security of data is a prime concern for individuals and business houses. Encrypted data on online storage services drastically ramps up the security. Only authorized access or use is possible. Physical data storage, makes it vulnerable to hackers.

Sharing: This is one of the greatest advancement. Real time work involves lot of sharing of data, files, folders and information, Cloud Hard Drive enables users to share folders or files anytime, anyplace.

Syncing: Automatic update of files across different devices is ensured by syncing. As a result of that, users can have access to the updated files irrespective of the device being used

Disadvantages of Cloud Hard Drive:

Technical Problems: Cloud Drive offers accessibility everywhere and any time. However, small technical glitch on the client side can seriously hamper the whole process. Even, the most efficient and experienced providers run into such issue.

Issue of Speed: Once in a while, users face harrowing time uploading and downloading data from the server since it takes enormous amount of time.

Breach of Security: Though, service providers take utmost care to protect the data, yet, the security is not fool proof. There had been instances in the past, where private files of celebrity had been hacked. Even a small compromise on the server side can expose millions of sensitive files to the risk of hacking.